Musings on Markets

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Without contesting the basic conclusion that Facebook had a bad operating quarter, after its earnings report for the third quarter of 2022, let's review the accounting numbers to see how bad it truly was, and why. billion in the last twelve months (ending September 2022). billion to $49.3 billion , as reported. billion , as reported.

Finance 74

Finance Start-ups Equity Equity Financing 74

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 5, 2024

Standard Deviation in Equity/Firm Value 2. Book Value Multiples 3. EBIT & EBITDA multiple s 5. Working capital needs Thus, I compute pricing multiples based on revenues (EV to Sales, Price to Sales), earnings (PE, PEG), book value (PBV, EV to Invested Capital) or cash flow proxies (EV to EBITDA).

Dividends 98

Dividends Risk Premium Equity Book Value 98

Musings on Markets

OCTOBER 6, 2023

One way to measure progress on this issue is to look at the portion of the book value of equity at US companies that comes from tangible assets, in the chart below: Looking across all US firms from 1980 to 2022, the portion of book value of equity that comes tangible assets has dropped from more than 70% in 1998 to about 30% in 2022.

Intangible Assets 104

Intangible Assets Book Value Equity Start-ups 104

Musings on Markets

JANUARY 6, 2023

By the same token, it is impossible to use a pricing metric (PE or EV to EBITDA), without a sense of the cross sectional distribution of that metric at the time. For example, I have seen it asserted that a stock that trades at less than book value is cheap or that a stock that trades at more than twenty times EBITDA is expensive.

Risk Premium 52

Risk Premium Dividends EBITDA Start-ups 52

Benzinga

JULY 26, 2023

Financial Highlights of the Transaction The total estimated consideration of $395 million: i) represents less than 2.75x of expected EBITDA in 2024, ii) is estimated to be less than the book value of MacKellar's assets and iii) is expected to be over 50% accretive based on incremental earnings per share. billion $1.15

EBIT 40

EBIT Debt Financing Book Value Finance 40

Musings on Markets

MARCH 8, 2023

The same amount of cash is paid out in either case, the effects on equity are identical (in both book value and market value terms) and the operations of the company remain unchanged. In short, the default mechanism for returning cash at US companies has become buybacks, not dividends.

Dividends 91

Dividends Start-ups Finance Corporate Finance 91

Musings on Markets

FEBRUARY 4, 2023

The company's return on invested capital has steadily declined, even as it has scaled up, hovering just over 3% in 2021-2022. You see similar movements in the price to book, where the stock has gone from trading under book value to 6.7 times revenues in the most recent two years.

Start-ups 100

Start-ups Market Capitalization Marketability Equity 100